Fair and balanced

I was kind of hard on Arthur Godfrey yesterday, so in the interest of fairness, here is a picture of Steve Allen holding a turkey:

Arthur Godfrey was the Rosie O'Donnell of his day

I hold no more grudge against Arthur Godfrey than I do against any other talentless millionaire control freak. Still, I'm glad I didn't grow up in the 50's, when his ruddy mediocrity bulged out of every possible form of media, extolling the virtues of banalities like Lipton tea, Unguentine, and Julius La Rosa.











Save 10 cents on gelatin! Arthur Godfrey commands it!

The Formica carousel of despair

Now, I have seen many sad things in my perusal of mid-20th century magazines, but this has to be one of the most pitiful. It's from the February 1963 Home Craftsman: "FUTURISTIC IDEAS for home decor."

If this is the future, I hope I die young.

It's not merely the horror of the design--the pink and red color scheme (why does anyone ever think those colors go together on anything but a Valentine's Day card?). It's not only the relentless carrying out of the carousel theme--the omnipresent ribbons, the little footrests on the barstools, the scalloped pink wooden valance around the kitchen. It's the look on that poor woman's face.

Who does she imagine she's smiling at? Who blew out the candles on the cake? What happened to the children the party hats were intended for? How long has the clock been stopped at 2:35?

It's as if someone cast Miss Havisham in Glass Menagerie.

I'm impressed at how accurately this 1963 feature foretold the gruesome sterility of the '70's. We were warned, people.

Summer fashions, coast to coast

Nothing screams "I am a potholder!" quite like rickrack. At first I thought this was some ultra-modest version of a bikini (because the pool), but it turns out it's "playtime separates." Playtime separates, like rompers, should not be worn by adults. Remember this. It will probably come up again.

The loving-hands-at-home look of this item implies there will be a pattern for it further back in the magazine. Not so. In June of 1953 you could actually pay money for this ensemble, from Casual Time of California. The halter top was five bucks and the "apron shorts"--a term I was not previously familiar with but which will immediately be entered on my list of Forbidden Fashion--would set you back $8.

They are made of a fabric called Twistalene--one of the thousands of it's-so-new-we-just-made-a-name-up-out-of-thin-air substances that abounded in the '50's. And where art thou now, Twistalene? Where art thou now?

Pavlov's dog meets Freud's wife

Beer = sex. That's the real message here, though it's coyly spelt out "Beer = hospitality." We don't need the pink and red color scheme, the high-heeled slippers, the phallic lamp, or the reference to "her snacks" to get the point.

It says a lot about the fifties that you found beer advertisements in Family Circle magazine. Also that Budweiser was one of the better beers you could buy. We've come a long way, baby.

Those were also glory days for advertisers, who could make a living penning monologues of Shakesperean length to describe their products.

The text reads:

My husband was frantic when he came home from work. He had forgotten that this was the night the boys were coming over for poker.

But I hadn't. There was plenty of cold Budweiser in the refrigerator to go along with my snacks.

When they'd gone, he said, "Even the ones who lost had a good time . . . thanks to the good things to eat, the Budweiser and your good memory."

(Actually, Budweiser reminded me, when I saw it at the store. When I see Budweiser, I think of hospitality . . . letting people know you think enough of them to serve the best.)

For the life of me I can't figure out what she's doing with her hands. Protecting wet nail polish, perhaps?

And we are live

About ten years ago I started collecting women's magazines from the 1930's through the 1960's.

Six years ago I got a Ph.D. which included some work in Women's Studies.

Last week I got a scanner.

Let the games begin!

One difference between this blog and other, similar sites, is that I will sometimes actually test the recipes. This is one I've tried, from the December 1956 Family Circle magazine. It's OK, for meatloaf. In fact Lipton still prints this recipe on its soup boxes (though nowadays they call for dry breadcrumbs--easier to buy prepackaged). It's now called "Souperier Meatloaf"; I guess we've raised the bar for party fare since 1956.

Also, sometime in the last fifty years, we've stopped thinking of Lipton soup mix as a "Continental" touch in our cooking. It was a simpler time. Simpler, stupider, and saltier.

testing!

Test at 350 degrees for one hour.